Category: Mary Woodward at the Festivals

**** (4 stars)

“Acutely Observed”

Once again I’m in a show which wasn’t what I expected, but which was excellent.

Kate Skinner, an American actor, has us laughing from her first entrance – congratulating us for coming to her show, even though we know it’s about a widow.  She’s 70, and one of the things about getting older is that the people around you, whom you love, start dying…. One of these is her husband Ron Mclarty, whose death five years ago she sees as some sort of cosmic prank.  This show is a posthumous love letter to him – whenever she talks about him, her face lights up into a luminous smile.

It’s also a humorous account of her forays into the world of online dating, begun after she realised she was beginning to see a visiting plumber as more than a workman…  At first, she regarded this as therapy, mere window shopping – but then began to wonder if she could, would, should take it further.  Her best friend, her ‘dating doula’, outlined the steps she should follow – contact, online conversation, coffee or a drink in a neutral space.

Being Kate, she didn’t necessarily do things in the correct order.  And here followed some potentially hilarious but also depressingly familiar stories about encounters with people who weren’t particularly bothered about providing accurate descriptions of themselves, especially where age and height were concerned.  “The attack of the incoming kiss” and the “rotating tongue kiss” were regular features of these encounters, all described with a wealth of acutely-observed and memorable detail and delightfully edgy New York humour.

Along the way, Kate learned much about herself, and it was interesting to see her development from critical observer [as if taking part in a scientific experiment], to someone who began to see her dates’ point of view – maybe they’d not kissed anyone in a very long time?  Maybe the mind-numbingly boring one-sided conversations were because Kate was the first person who’d ever listened?

Kate’s use of language is delightful and evocative: it’s easy to laugh with her, remembering all too clearly hesitantly dipping one’s own toe in the dating pool.  Running through the show are loving remembrances of Ron, increasingly poignant as she loses him to dementia.  With all these memories, is it surprising that she’s happy to walk round the edge of the dating pool, but can’t bring herself to plunge in.

She’s very engaging, a pleasure to watch, her expressive face and body moving easily from joy to sorrow and all points in between.  I resonate strongly with her experiences of trying to engage in conversation with gatherings where most people are in couples and simply can’t cope with a woman on her own – “who knew there were so many ways to disappear?”.  Where I part company with her is that a very long time ago now I was on my own after a lifetime of being unhappy while coupled up.  I decided after some fruitless forays into the world of ‘meeting people’ that I wasn’t going to waste any more time on this, but would instead concentrate on enjoying my own life – if someone came along, fine: if they didn’t, then at least I’d had a life I enjoyed!

Gentle reader, no-one ever came along.  But I’ve had an absolutely brilliant life “on my own” – doing things I enjoy, having good friends, but also being really comfortable with my own company.  A love like Kate and Ron’s never came my way, and part of me envies her.  Another part is glad that she’s arrived at a point in her life where she can celebrate what a gift she had, and celebrate her single life rather than seeing it as a trap from which she’s desperate to escape.

An excellent, thought-provoking, and very funny show which her audience really loved.

Help I’m trapped in a one-woman show, 10 Dome at Pleasance Dome (Venue 23), for more information go to: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/help-i-m-trapped-in-a-one-woman-show

***** (5 stars)

“Admiration, Amazement, Awe.”

Scottish Ballet have done it yet again – produced a new work which leaves me speechless, groping helplessly for words with which to express how incredible it is. 

We are gripped from the opening moments, as a spotlit old crone watches in amazement as flakes of snow tumble gently around her in the darkness.  Filled with joy at this sight, she is suddenly twisted in torment and crouches, anguished and frozen.

Elizabeth I of England, at the very end of her life, looks back at the turbulent life and death of her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots.  We see Mary’s gay, carefree life in France, where with her handmaids, the ‘four Mary’s’, she rejoices in the lively atmosphere of the French court, alongside her husband, the Dauphin.  His death cuts short her rejoicing, and her stern and stately mother in law, Catherine de Medici sends her back to her kingdom of Scotland.

In Scotland Mary meets and is attracted to Rizzio, who becomes part of her entourage.  Elizabeth sends Lord Darnley [who has claims to both the English and Scottish thrones] to Edinburgh.  Mary is bedazzled by him, marries him, and becomes pregnant: Darnley and Rizzio begin an affair, which Mary discovers.  Darnley arranges for, and takes part in, Rizzio’s murder in Mary’s presence.

Elizabeth’s principal secretary Walsingham’s spy network is everywhere and sees everything.  Darnley dies and Mary is accused of his murder.  She gives birth to a son, James, and flees to England to seek sanctuary with her fellow Queen.  Walsingham’s intelligence adds fuel to the rumours that Mary is plotting against Elizabeth; he puts pressure on the English queen to sign Mary’s death warrant.  Mary is executed, a scarlet-clad martyr: Elizabeth lives to a great age – but James is waiting in the wings…

Choreographer Sophie Laplane and director James Bonas have co-created a glorious work which deserves a permanent place in any ballet company’s repertoire.  Visually stunning, immensely powerful, and deeply moving, it holds the audience captivated throughout, only allowing them the release of a positive roar of acclamation and standing ovation at the final curtain.  Mikael Karlsson and Michael P Atkinson’s original score is a marvel of invention, superbly played by Scottish Ballet’s orchestra under the baton of Martin Yates.

Soutra Gilmour’s set is a grey box, whose walls at times rise but then fall to create a claustrophobic backdrop for the action – most tellingly when the accusations against Mary appear and increase the pressure Walsingham is putting on Elizabeth.  Bonnie Beecher’s lighting only serves to underline the atmosphere of intrigue, while Gilmour’s mostly black costumes showcase the wealth of the royal courts, black being the colour of cloth only the very wealthiest could afford.  The Dauphin’s silver costume and Mary of Guise’s gargantuan silver framework and costume set them apart from ordinary mortals.  Darnley’s white costume links with the cream of Older Elizabeth and the cream and gold of Younger Elizabeth, whose auburn hair streams fierily down her back.  Mary’s simple velvet costume gleams richly and allows her a freedom of movement denied to her English cousin; an auburn streak in her shining black hair hints at the relationship between them.  The birth and growth of James was brilliantly realised, and the insect-like spies were a stroke of genius!

And then we have the dancing…  I simply don’t have the words to describe it in any technical way: all I can say is that, like everything of Laplane’s that I have seen, it’s inventive, complex and simple at the same time, graceful, joyful, expressive and an utter delight.  As someone whose principal passion is opera, it’s a marvel to me that so much can be expressed without a single word.  Every movement, every gesture, every look speaks volumes. 

Roseanna Leney’s Mary is a marvellous mixture of passion and majesty, tender and haughty in turn, betrayed by her heart and suffering intensely.  Charlotta Öfverholm is incomparable as Older Elizabeth, initially watching events with interest but increasingly conscience-stricken and remorseful.  Harvey Littlefield’s Younger Elizabeth towers over everyone else on stage, the very essence of regal power until she is pressurised into signing Mary’s death warrant and instantly recoils in horror.

Thomas Edwards’ sinuous, snakelike Walsingham, Javier Andreu’s ardent, enthusiastic Rizzio and Evan Loudon’s charismatic, duplicitous and ultimately cold-hearted Darnley were all perfectly cast and all superb dancers.  As ever, Scottish Ballet’s corps is made up of dancers who work perfectly together as a team and shine in all the smaller roles they are given.

And then there’s the lime-green-neon clad Jester of Kayla-Maree Tarantolo, a fascinating and unsettling observer, participant and manipulator of the action.  Sometimes care attendant of Older Elizabeth, at times controller or disturbingly gleeful observer of the action, her slender form appears everywhere, both assisting and initiating the action, sometimes with loving care, at others with almost demonic joy.  An ingenious invention, wonderfully portrayed.

There’s so much more I could say, if only time and space allowed.  The house was packed, the last show is tomorrow: spare a thought for the dancers, giving four performances of this complex and demanding new work in only three days!  I’m so happy to learn that there will be performances in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Inverness in the next couple of months: I will want to get tickets for all four venues, to experience this fabulous piece again and again…

EIF, Scottish Ballet: Mary Queen of Scots, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh for more information go to: https://www.eif.co.uk/events/mary-queen-of-scots.

**** (4 stars)

“A Joy”

Maybe you only know of Mozart from the film Amadeus, or Peter Schaffer’s play of the same name, which makes great drama out of the [mostly fictional] rivalry between the young genius and Imperial Court Composer Salieri.  Maybe you know more – of the many tours around Europe when he was a child prodigy, or about the man, his incredible music, his all-too-brief life. 

Most people don’t know that Wolfgang Amadeus had an older sister – she’s there in the family portrait in the house in Salzburg where brother Wolfie was born.  They’re seated side by side at the keyboard, with father Leopold standing magisterially beside the instrument, hand raised as he gives both siblings a lesson.  

Anna Maria Mozart, known affectionately as Nannerl, was herself an accomplished musician, whose talent showed itself at an early age.  Her brother’s talent became apparent even earlier, and canny Leopold took them both on extended tours round the courts of the great and good all over Europe, receiving lavish gifts but not the patronage or employment he so obviously hoped for.   Wolfgang went on to make a name for himself, though never a fortune: Nannerl slips out of the picture in her teenage years, and most people know nothing more about her.

In The Other Mozart, created and written by Sylvia Milo, she and Daniela Galli alternate in the role of Nannerl, who stands centre stage, surrounded by a vast circle of fabric which is strewn with letters and sheets of manuscript paper.  The story we hear is drawn from facts, stories, and extracts from the Mozart family’s letters to each other – copious amounts of letters, since they wrote constantly to each other while travelling between or living in different cities.

Just as Amadeus is narrated from the extremely jealous standpoint of supposedly talentless Salieri, the Other Mozart is a potentially very biased narrative from a jealous older sister.  Potentially, I say – what comes over is Nannerl’s massive feeling of frustration.  She, as I’ve said, demonstrated great musical talent from an early age, and her father was very happy to develop and encourage her: and then Wolfgang was born and everything changed.  

I don’t know if Nannerl was jealous of her younger brother or loved him to bits: nor, indeed, do I know if her talent was less than his.  What is known is that Nannerl and Wolfie were exhibited a bit like performing animals or talented pets – always with Wolfie getting to do the really showy bits – until his sister was in her mid-teens.  And then it all stopped for Nannerl – she was sent home to be with her mother while her brother and father continued touring.

A constant thread running through this show is the outrageously low opinion of women prevalent in Europe in the 18th century.  Women’s brains were lesser than men’s: thinking and reasoning would make them ill.  Their function was simply to be decorative, to please and support their husband, and of course to reproduce.   It was acceptable for them to play a keyboard instrument, but most definitely not an orchestral instrument.  And of course, they were incapable of composition….  After a certain age, it was inappropriate for Nannerl to perform in public – it would seriously lessen her chances of making a suitable marriage.  She could, however, continue to play – “music will be your ornament, with which you will please your husband”.

In Vienna, the Mozarts had met and been impressed by the musicality of Marianna Martines, an unmarried woman who was a pupil of Haydn’s.  She played her own compositions in public, to loud acclaim.  But Nannerl couldn’t hope to emulate her – Martines was of noble birth and had money, while Nannerl had neither.  Back home in Salzburg, Nannerl endured lessons in ‘womanliness’ and housekeeping from her mother while continuing to receive letters from her father and brother telling of all the latter’s troubles and triumphs.

And the story goes on – very little detail about Wolfgang’s career and compositions, some really bitchy reactions to his marriage to Constance Weber, and virtually nothing about the deaths of her father and brother.  We hear quite a lot about her unrealised hopes of marriage to ‘Franz’ and her subsequent marriage to a member of the nobility: as his third wife, which entailed looking after five stepchildren in addition to the three she bore herself.  We also learn of the blossoming of her reputation later in her life, as she became the guardian of her brother’s reputation and works, and was appreciated for her own musical talents, only to be forgotten again after her death.

Today’s show, with Daniela Galli as Anna Maria Mozart and a vast range of other characters, kept the audience engaged, amused and thoroughly entertained.  She paced around the set, drew props out of concealed pockets in the frills of the vast skirt covering the stage, picked up and read from some of the innumerable letters strewn around.  Centre stage was a strange construction, which at first sight could have been the skeleton of a strange creature from a sci-fi movie.  It turned out to be the framework for a corset and the support for the panniers of an eighteenth-century frock, into which at times Daniela strapped herself, mirroring the constricting conventions imprisoning women of the time.  It was a joy to see her, at the end of the show, rise up from the floor and grow into the tall, graceful, whole, talented woman Nannerl Mozart should have been allowed to be.

The Other Mozart, Studio 2, Assembly George Square ( Venue 17), for more information go to: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-other-mozart

*** (3 stars)

“Mystified”

Well that really was something completely different.

How to describe the indescribable?  Twelve singers, two percussionists and six puppeteers – who didn’t get a curtain call, which I think is inexcusable – presented four  ancient Chinese myths, part of a collection itself called The Book of Mountains and Seas.

The legend of Pan Gu, tells of the creation of the world.  The giant Pan Gu hatches out of a cosmic egg and separates its contents into yang and yin, creating the sky and the world.  As he grows, these move further and further apart: when he dies, his body becomes everything in creation, both in the heavens and on the earth.

The Spirit Bird tells of a princess, Nu Wa, who drowns at sea.  Her spirit enters the body of a bird and for all eternity tries to exact her revenge on the sea, dropping into it an endless succession of twigs and pebbles.

The Ten Suns are the children of mother Xi He and Di Jun, God of the Eastern Heaven.  Each takes it in turn to ride around the earth on a Sun Bird, until one day they get tired of doing this and decide to ride round together, causing crops to wither, water to evaporate , and all living things on earth to die.  The god of archery, Hou Yi, is summoned and kills nine of the suns: the tenth is left to bring light to the world.

Kua Fu Chasing the Sun tells of the giant Kua Fu who can’t understand where the sun disappears to each night, and decides to chase it to find out.  He runs faster and faster, and in his thirst drinks dry the rivers and the seas.  He dies of exhaustion: he drops his walking stick, which grows into forests of peach trees.

These legends are all full of meaning for us, in particular questioning our attitudes to the earth we inhabit and the way we relate to and treat the land, the sea, and all living things.  Some of the visual effects were very beautiful, especially the glowing globes of the suns against the darkness surrounding them; the puppetry that created the giant Kua Fu’s running was very impressive.  I particularly loved the shower of peach blossom petals which fell from on high like a shower of fireflies on to the stage.

I wish I could say the same of Hang Ruo’s music and libretto.  The twelve singers of Ars Nova Copenhagen are obviously extremely talented musicians who delivered a score which had for the most part no well-defined rhythmic pulse and for its entirety no sense of tonality or key.  How they each kept time, found their notes, and held them against the conflicting sounds coming from those around them, I have no idea.  Listeners more accustomed than I to listen to contemporary music may have found it deeply meaningful and/ or moving: I found it very hard to enjoy or make any sense of what I was hearing.  Wordless vocalising, mostly on single notes or in very short phrases, alternated with seemingly meaningless syllables, partly from the original Chinese text and a nonsense language invented for this piece.  At one point I began to believe the singers were singing ‘mug-gle, mug-gle’ – but they can’t have been….

It didn’t help that a protruding box on the next shelf up obscured part of the titles and translations that were being projected on to the back of the stage: had I not looked at the on line programme before the show began, I would have been completely lost.

There were some rousing cheers in the applause at the end of the show, but I fancy I was not the only audience member left totally mystified by the whole experience.

EIF, Book of Mountains and Seas, Royal Lyceum Theatre, for more information go to: https://www.eif.co.uk/events/book-of-mountains-and-seas

**** (4 stars)

“Absolutely fascinating”

I’m always delighted when I get the opportunity to thank an artist or performer in person for their work, and today was such an opportunity.  Ken Currie was in conversation with [retired] art historian Tom Normand.  The two have been friends for years, and Tom has been a witness to Ken’s success as an artist right from his early beginnings as a student at Glasgow College of Art.  As one of the ‘New Glasgow Boys’ Ken was famous in the art world in a way you might associate with being a member of a boy band today.

Unlike previous Scottish artists, Ken didn’t have to teach to make a living.  On the strength of an early exhibition, he was commissioned in 1987 to paint eight panels for the ceiling of Glasgow’s People’s Palace [famous as the home of Billy Connolly’s banana boots].  These paintings clearly demonstrated his interest in Scottish [and particularly Glaswegian] working people and of figurative art as opposed to the abstract styles in fashion at the time, especially among members of the Edinburgh art elite.

In subsequent years a change in Ken Currie’s style and technique began to be visible, with greater luminosity and more universal themes.  In 2002 the Scottish National Portrait Gallery [NPG] invited him to paint the portraits of three prominent oncologists – his first ever portrait commission.  The resulting painting has become the most popular and most visited painting in the gallery.  [It’s one I am constantly drawn to, and I’m feeling the need to see it again asap.]  Ken remarked that people’s reaction is almost always “fight or flight” – it’s an extraordinarily compelling work, with the three men appearing almost ghost-like against a dark and potentially menacing background.

It was fascinating listening to Ken talk about how the painting was made.  The two surgeons were far too busy to sit for him, so Ken spent hours watching them in the operating theatre.  [The third was concerned with research, and equally busy].  All three allowed him to take plaster casts of their faces, so he was able to study how light and shade fell on their faces and incorporate that into his picture. 

Later on he talked about a more recent, equally compelling addition to the NPG’s collection, Unknown man, a portrait of anatomist Susan Black, who is pictured with a shrouded cadaver.  This was not a formal commission, but painted ‘because he wanted to’.  His studio journal at the time, as he tried to make sense of all the things he had seen in the anatomy department in preparation for the work, contained musings about the difference between live bodies in the operating theatre and dead ones in the anatomy department – the latter no longer a living person but a human-shaped object”.

In the Q&A at the end of the session, Ken spoke of being completely incapable of “painting for relaxation”.  For him it is a compulsion: through it he releases his inner tension that comes from his concern for and interest in the many crises, political and otherwise, that surround us locally, nationally and globally.   He also quoted someone else’s observation that an artist only makes 50% of any work – the other 50% comes from the viewer.

Ken Currie: Paintings and writings is a book that arose out of correspondence between him and Tom Normand and draws extensively on Ken’s studio journals.  They show his mindset while working on a painting and is a daily record of his thoughts and comments on what’s going on in the world around him.  He never intended them for publication and stopped writing them for some time after the publication of the book.  He has now resumed – so maybe one day there will be a Ken Currie #2!

This was an absolutely fascinating hour which will result in a visit to the Portrait Gallery as soon as I can make the time.  This was the penultimate session in Luath Press’s ScotlandsFest series – I’m already looking forward to next year!!!

Scotland’s Fest, The Heart of Darkness – Ken Currie, Paintings and Writings, St Columba’s by the Castle (Venue 367) for more information go to: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/scotlandsfest-the-heart-of-darkness-ken-currie-paintings-and-writings